Bolton Student Explores Medicine At Global Youth Summit

Callie Love, a 17-year-old Bolton High School student, recently returned from representing the state at the Global Youth Summit on the Future of Medicine at Brandeis University.

Callie Love, a 17-year-old Bolton High School student, recently returned from representing the state at the Global Youth Summit on the Future of Medicine at Brandeis University. (Michael Walsh, The Hartford Courant)

Bolton High School student Callie Love spent her first week of summer at a global youth summit about medicine

Bolton High School student Callie Love started her summer vacation with a trip to the Global Youth Summit on the Future of Medicine at Brandeis University.

Love, a 17-year-old who will be a senior at the high school this fall, spent nearly a week at the university learning more about medicine, a field she plans to enter into after college.

She said her love for health and medicine can be traced back to a specific memory of elementary school.

"We learned about the heart in sixth grade," Love said. "I've always been fascinated by the human body and how much we know and how much we don't know."

Love said she wants to enter into the field of either pediatric psychiatry or pediatric behavioral neurology.

She said the trip to Braindeis, which was from June 21 to June 27, solidified that idea. It was, in particular, a visit to the Boston Children's Hospital that left a big impression on her.

"That was probably the one day that I realized I need to do medicine," Love said. "I loved the atmosphere. We saw some of the kids and none of them seem scared. Adult hospitals are cold. The children's hospital, they make it good and fun for the kids."

Love said her group also got a tour of Harvard University's medical school. Other time was spent listening to different speakers and working with other students in groups to solve problems using critical thinking.

She said it was refreshing to meet and work with other students who had the same interests she had. There were 240 students in attendance at the summit from all over the country and world.

"At my school it's not cool to like chemistry," Love said. "But I love chemistry. The first day [at the summit] I talked to another girl and we talked about how much we like chemistry."

Love, who also plays volleyball at her school and has been taking dance lessons for years, said she feels more confident about moving forward with her decision to enter the field of medicine because of what she learned from the speakers at the summit and the visits she took.

"I didn't realize how much I didn't know about the process to become a doctor," Love said. "I used to be really nervous about it, but now I'm just excited."